Just a Rather Pretty Girl
Gladnick, Sergeant Robert
Just a Rather Pretty Girl By Sergeant Robert Gladnick SHI wss a houseworker—rushing to and frso from one tiny room to the other or busying herself with the ever bubbling pots. Lurera would...
...The company's board has 24 directors who are connected with 137 other corporations...
...Economic Lesson III WeSTBROOK PEGLER complains constantly about the lack of democracy in trade unions...
...Daily, Lucera would show up, cook the food, sweep the cave and darn the clothes of all the men...
...Poor lads...
...It seemed that everyM* wss "the committee...
...men lounged around the village scrutinizing all comers and goers...
...They would burn the pasta...
...At annual meetings of nearly every corporation in the country, few stockholder* appear to cast their vote for company directors, although each share of stock entitles the owner to a vote...
...Before departing, however, over at her house and in a soiled notebook they wrote their names and addresses...
...Lurera would reply trail questions with a full-toothed smile and sparkling Mff-eyed look...
...Anyone caught out-of doors was ummarily shot...
...The sick and disabled prisoners were parceled out to the villagers and everything' went its old, usual way — everyone hoping and playing far the quick arrival of the Allies from the South...
...In September, nearly a year ago, the armistice was shjaed...
...en tha Fascist Republican Guard together with *»» Gestapo masters arrived in the village, there was no sign of any prisoners...
...When I ssked her if she was ever afraid of being discovered, she would Sihrug her shoulders ss if not desiring to reply to such a trival question, and instead she...
...but not one with any trade union connection...
...None of them knew how to cook...
...las AHies ran into stiff opposition...
...In *» Chianti Hills a great cavern had been dug, and wmr* the (escaped prisoners took shelter from the cold , •HHnine wind and the Gestapo pursuers...
...Nothing more was heard of them...
...They knew that prisoners were living in the vicinity...
...Soon the house became known as the Ge«tapo...
...Usually, no candidates are nominated to oppose the hand-picked directors selected by the company officials in power...
...The entire village would collect their few and meager bits of food, cany them to ao/ne house—generally a different house every time...
...Jealousy was so great among her Nazi admirers that no sooner was she followed by one than the others would come trooping...
...she would say...
...During the *»tu»wing nights mattresses, blankets, cooking utensils **• whisked in the darkness to the mountain refuge...
...Sometimes I wondered if they didn't burn it on purpose so I'd stay to cook it for them...
...Work in the Casa...
...Yet tktr* it net ons worker representative on thi Metropolitan Board of Directors...
...But while some unions are run from tha top, tha overwhelming majority of unions have regular conventions and elections for officers...
...The men in the mountain cave were safe for the lime being, but as the siege continued, then supplies of food ran short and their village friends became worried about how they would be able to carry on -as no one could get to them without rousing the S.S...
...But then I would say to myself, 'After all, they are men...
...It was Lucera who, for all her youth and innocence, solved the problem for the villagers...
...It was her way, a woman's way, *f doing something to fight the Germans...
...Some of the S.S...
...Tmrly tha next uorning the men returred—with **PleM, tired faces—but without the ex-POWs...
...Each policy holder, no matter how much insursnce he holds, is entitled to one vote for company officers...
...would tell me about the escaped prisoners...
...From the few informers they could bribe or torture into giving information they learned that they were still close by...
...The officers of the company, using company funds, send out proxy forms soliciting the vote of each stockholder and it would require hundreds of thousands of dollars to challenge the smooth-running proxy machin- ry of large corporations...
...The villagers gathered in small groups • the marketplace, in taverns, in homes...
...Bu} the Fascists and the (iestapo men were not going to be fooled so easily...
...tka villagers replied, "The committee.'' To the queethksa as to what committee or who served as head of th* committee they'd merely shrug their shoulders at »f ignorance of the fact that "the committee'' included everyone in the village—the priest, the doctor, tha blacksmith, the road-maker...
...At a prisoner-of-war camp near the village tha gates were opened and the prisoners allowed to escape before the Germans could arrive snd rearrest them...
...what do they know about cooking?'" Thus the months wore on...
...Outside . of-her looks, which are quite ordinary in this part of Italy, Lucera appeared to be just snother young and bssy house girl—cooking, washing and taking care of a multitude of little brothers and sisters...
...During the day, Fascist Guards and S.S...
...So I'd slay to make the pasta for them...
...The winter Wtnther brought active campaigning to a standstill...
...After dark, a stiict curfew was in effect...
...But what about democracy in industry...
...Occasionally one would play the gallant and fetch a pail of water for her from the village pump...
...If you were to ssk her she ssBjId reply, "I did s little housework...
...When I inquired, "Who took care of them...
...One night •**riy December, there was an exodus of able••iied men, both villagers and ex-prisoners of war...
...A large group of liberated prisoners could not undertake the hazardous journey...
...What she wsnted most...
...Tha Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, for example, is legally owned by the 211,000,000 parsons who hold more than 40,000,000 Metropolitan Insurance policies...
...The Italian lieutenant in charge armed some of them and together with these former charges went south in an attempt to link up with the advancing Allies...
...As a result, no on at all attempted to pursue her on her trips to visit "Auntie" out in the country...
...They remained in the...
...They would sit there in the cave and watch me make it...
...But this suite simple snd ordinsry girl has served her countrysam and sllies very well...
...A few days ago the Allied troops entered the village...
...The Gestapo men, bored with inactivity, would take refu/e at her busy hearth...
...u?any eyes could have pierced the darknei i, they would ¦**• «een the silhouettes of pickaxes and shovels on ml man's backs...
...Wherever Lucera went the Gestapo men would wave her a "Buon Giomo" or "Guten Tag...
...men as she passed them, nod to the seedy-looking Republican Guards and stride off to the mountains—making sure that no one was following her...
...men grew jealous of the affection that they thought their more fortunate colleagues enjoyed in Lucera's home —and began to crowd her two tiny rooms...
...PH Germans were able to spare a few divisions to institute an active manhunt for the escaped prisoners as well as to quell the active resistance of the patriot Aided by the treacherous newly nested NafN Republican Fascist Guard, the Germans descended •g the surrounding countryside and like an Appenine VM swept everything before them, lit became obvious to the villagers that neither they IW their guests would long remain safe from the fjf|ng eyes of th* German S.S...
...and their Republican *o»;i«t spies...
...Some of the villagers grew suspicious of this intimacy, but those who knew her had no fear about Lucera's loyalty...
...The escaped prisoners of war, in their enthusiasm and joy st being re-united with their countrymen, almost forgot their helpmate of the previous dark days...
...A little patient vigilance and the escaped prisoners would be in the bag...
...There's up way of telling Lucera from any other Tuscan Village jirl—except that Lucera has the names and thanks of 65 sick snd disabled South African, English and Scottish men whom she saved from the jaws of the Gestapo...
...In 1937-38, the company spent thousands of dollars fighting unionisation of its agent...
...Elsewhere she'd be considered exreptamslly beautiful, but in Tuscany she was merely one aamng many native belles...
...To get her sassy I hsd to piece together a maze of information fnsm tha villagers...
...Thia never went to the policy holders for approval...
...village...
...Then Lucera world just happen to stroll around there and gather them all into a huge basket which she would deftly balance on her head, answer the gutteral greetings of the S.S...
...80 per cent of tha policies are held by workers...
...The cave assumed a home-like appearance...
Vol. 27 • October 1944 • No. 41
